Middle-class squeeze: Cumberland family scrapes by with little or no money to spare

Saturday

May 3, 2014 at 12:01 AM

“It’s like the middle class is being eliminated. You’re either wealthy or you’re poor,” say Joshua and Danielle Maziarz, who are modestly raising their three boys on a single income in Cumberland.

G. Wayne Miller Journal Staff Writer gwaynemiller

“Daddy should be home soon.”

With these words, Danielle Maziarz reassures her sons as night falls on this Tuesday.

Six-year-old Cade, 4-year-old Jack, and 23-month-old Charlie have finished their homemade pizza, bathed and dressed in pajamas. Cade has completed his kindergarten homework. The boys watch Bugs Bunny while Danielle tidies the dining room of their house in an old mill district of Cumberland. She and husband Josh will eat later, after their sons are asleep.

“That’s one thing I wish we could do,” Danielle says. “Have dinner as a family.”

Five nights a week, they cannot. The boys would not last until Daddy gets home.

And Josh must work late: without the overtime that extends his work days to 12 hours, the family could not afford even their modest lifestyle — a lifestyle in which coupons, sales and hand-me-downs are essential elements, and there is no possibility of extravagant vacations, expensive gadgets or new cars.

Almost 7 p.m., and the boys are restless. Danielle herself is tiring. Awake at 6:30 a.m., an hour after Josh left for work, she managed the boys’ morning routine and drove Cade at 7:30 a.m. to Blackstone Valley Prep, with his brothers riding along. Ditto the return trip, when Blackstone Valley let out at 4:15 p.m. Three days a week, she also brings Jack to preschool in Lincoln. Charlie is with her always, through the cooking and laundry and other tasks that keep the household humming. A typical day is “kind of madness,” she says, good-naturedly.

Finally, Danielle sees her husband arriving in the 1993 Mercury with the rebuilt motor that she calls “the clunker.”

“Look who’s home!” she says when Josh steps inside.

With a happy baby-talk hello, Charlie runs toward his father.

“Hey, dude!”

Josh lifts his youngest up in a brief hug.

“I don’t want to touch you too much because I’m dirty,” he says. “I want to make sure I don’t have steel chips on me.”

After greeting his other sons and Danielle, Josh disappears into the bathroom. He spends a moment with his family when he emerges and then he’s in the kitchen preparing a dinner of sweet potatoes for him and his wife. If all goes well, the boys will soon be asleep and they’ll be able to eat it — if they still have energy. On nights when they are totally exhausted, and there are many of those, a snack must suffice.

They are hardly alone in weariness. Many Rhode Islanders in this anemic economy, the nation’s worst as measured by unemployment, pass long days with meager reward.

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Josh programs high-tech machines at a Cranston manufacturing company, earning about $37,000 annually in base pay and approximately $13,000 more in overtime. That places the Maziarzes firmly in the middle fifth of all Rhode Island households — but middle class means something different today, something substantially less, than a generation or two ago.

“He’s working so many hours,” Danielle says. “How are we not getting ahead?”

“Our money doesn’t go far anymore,” Josh says.

“It’s like the middle class is being eliminated. You’re either wealthy or you’re poor.”

That is not entirely hyperbole. Since 1990, according to a Providence Journal analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the average household income of Rhode Island’s middle fifth has declined, adjusted for inflation — while the top fifth, the wealthy, has witnessed a steady climb. The bottom two-fifths — the lower middle class and the poor — have fared worst of all.

Managing a budget

It will cost an estimated $241,080 for a couple in the Maziarzes’ income group to raise a child born in 2012 — Charlie, for example — according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report last year. The nearly quarter-million-dollar national average, an increase of almost 3 percent in just one year, is for expenses through age 17. It does not include college, which is prohibitive: one year’s tuition, fees, room and board today costs an average $17,474 at a public and $35,074 at a private institution, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

“Unbelievable,” says Josh.

Managing a family budget with such punishing math requires thoughtful decisions. Loath to run up large credit-card balances, the Maziarzes first determine what they cannot buy.

They cannot buy new cars.

The Mercury with the rebuilt motor was originally owned by Josh’s parents. The Nissan mini-van that Danielle drives is seven years old. They bought it used in 2012 and are still making monthly payments of $365.

Danielle relates a conversation she had with her father, a blue-collar worker like her husband, on a visit to her native Indiana: “He was talking about, ‘gosh, the ’50s and ’60s were such a great time to grow up. Things were so much simpler. And the cost of living? You could actually buy a car with cash — you didn’t have to finance it.’ ” Those days are so distant.

The Maziarzes do not spend much in restaurants.

“We never go out to eat,” says Josh.

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“Very rarely,” Danielle says. On one of their infrequent excursions, she says, the bill came to $50. “Just for one meal! I’m like, ‘You know what? We could go to the grocery store and spend $50 to last for a few meals versus one meal.’ ”

They do not splurge on vacations.

Ordinarily, they drive once a summer to Indiana, where they stay with Danielle’s relatives — but they may not be able to afford the break this year. Day trips around the Ocean State may be it for 2014, but even getting to the ocean is not necessarily free.

“You go to the beach and you drop $20 just to park,” Josh says.

“Which is crazy,” Danielle says.

“You have to pay money for every little thing in this state.”

And Josh and Danielle do not spend money on each other.

“We don’t exchange gifts,” says Danielle. “For my birthday, I tell him I don’t want anything. Because I’m realistic. I’d rather put the money where it needs to be.”

For Christmas 2013, the Maziarzes spent about $300 on presents for the boys. They used a layaway plan, starting in the fall and paying a small amount each week. Unknown to her, Josh planned a surprise for his wife.

“For months and months,” Danielle says, “I was like, ‘I really need to get a haircut’ — but I didn’t want to spend the money when I could put it toward groceries or something. He got me a gift certificate to go get my hair cut. I didn’t get him anything. I felt awful!”

A gentleman, Josh took no offense.

Pennies count

Born and raised in East Providence, Josh, 35, met Danielle, 26, by way of the music ensemble Celtic Woman. Danielle was a young Web designer who designed Celtic Woman’s site in the group’s early days; Josh liked their music. After talking on the phone, the two met at a concert in Portland, Ore., and that was it.

“When you know, you know,” Danielle says.

Danielle moved from Indiana to Rhode Island and the couple married in 2006. Josh worked for a manufacturer, but was laid off after Cade was born.

“I started going to CCRI because I wanted to become an elementary school teacher,” Josh says. “I went to school and I worked at Walmart.”

“Just to make ends meet,” Danielle says.

“But we could not afford to live off the income. So I had to stop school and go back into manufacturing.” He likes his current job, but a dream had slipped away

Jack and Charlie were born.

Expenses climbed.

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Today, Danielle and Josh spend about $200 a week on food. Not wanting to ingest preservatives, pesticides and other potentially harmful substances, they favor organic and non-processed selections. The family’s health is paramount — and since forsaking traditional fare, Josh’s psoriasis, which verged on debilitating, has improved. Danielle has lost weight.

You must be ingenious to feed three growing boys and two parents any diet, good or bad, for approximately $865 a month. On their weekend shopping runs, Josh’s mother baby-sits the older boys while Danielle, Josh and the baby visit Trader Joe’s, Price Rite, Walmart and BJ’s. They use coupons and take advantage of sales. Pennies really do count.

With only sons, clothes can be handed down, oldest to middle to youngest. But there is cost. Danielle shops at Goodwill and Savers — “I’ve found Gymboree shorts and tops, which are crazy expensive in stores, virtually brand-new for $3” — and she keeps constant watch for discounts. She recently used a gift card she and Josh received for Christmas to take advantage of a 20-percent-off sale at Kohl’s.

“We got a ton of stuff — shoes and shorts that were pretty good — for $95.”

Danielle herself wears some secondhand attire.

“My mother will send me clothes,” she says.

The math doesn’t lie

The Maziarzes live in a house that has remained in his family since Josh’s great-grandmother bought it some eight decades ago. A Polish immigrant, she found steady work in mills on the Blackstone River, birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. Most of the mills closed long ago, the jobs lost to the South and overseas and automation. Josh considers himself fortunate to be employed in a successor industry.

Thanks to great-grandmother, the Maziarzes catch a big break on housing: there is no mortgage on their residence, which is on a small lot and owned by Josh’s father; Josh and Danielle must pay property and fire taxes and insurance, which total several hundred dollars monthly.

Every month, they pay approximately $350 to $400 on natural gas and electricity, $345 on gasoline, $865 on food, $365 on their car loan, $96 on car insurance, $106 on health insurance through the state health exchange, $50 on water, and $50 on sewage.

Approximately $1,150 in state and federal income taxes is deducted monthly from Josh’s pay, depending on overtime. Factor in the fluctuating costs of clothes, Cade’s school uniforms, Jack’s preschool tuition, out-of-pocket health expenditures, phones, cable, car maintenance, church charity, occasional entertainment and other expenses, and the math comes into sharp focus.

Accomplished with a camera, Danielle earns a few dollars from an occasional portrait job, but she lacks the time and costly equipment to expand Danielle Maziarz Photography. A passionate angler, Josh makes his own bass lures — and they are good, as a recent contest winner using them proved. Josh considered turning his hobby into a business, but Rhode Island’s burdensome taxes and regulations discouraged him.

“They beat you to death,” he says.

Danielle and Josh do not have the income to establish college funds for their children, who, if they choose to advance their educations, will have to work, take out loans, receive financial assistance or enroll in a community college, perhaps later transferring to a four-year school. Danielle and Josh do not have retirement accounts or any other investments.

They do keep a few hundred extra dollars in their checking account as a rainy-day fund, but they understand that would not carry them far.

“Our fallback is a credit card,” Danielle says. “If something [major] were to happen, well, we would put it on the credit card.”

“We are not pining after things that are unnecessary,” says Danielle. “We are beyond blessed.”

Josh gives thanks that he works for a company that can pay overtime. And yet, he sometimes turns wistful. “I would like to just be able to work a 40-hour week and come home and spend the time with my family,” he says.

Lately, working-class acquaintances have been talking about moving away from Rhode Island.

“They’re like, ‘Man, I wish I could leave. I can’t afford to live here anymore.’ I hear it all the time,” Josh said.

A similar discussion has started in the Maziarz household.

They wonder if they should move to Indiana, where costs are “exponentially” lower, Danielle says — and the state’s unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, 20th in the nation, is nearly three points lower Rhode Island’s, dead last.

“You could take my income and you could live a very comfortable life,” Josh says.

“Way more comfortable,” says his wife.

“We could have big gardens where we could save money and grow our food and have chickens.”

“And lots of land.”

Daddy could be home for dinner.

More: providencejournal.com/middleclasssqueeze

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